Law Firm Leadership and Communications

Confronted by increased competition and changes in the way expense conscious corporate clients procure legal services, law firms are responding by building capacity ' increasing their size through aggressive lateral hiring and acquisition. It is an appropriate response; driven by the market perception that in order to compete today for global corporate business, it is imperative that the modern law firm be large enough to handle both commoditized work as well as provide high end counsel, deep enough to handle any and all matters that a company may face, and streamlined enough to take advantage of technological and other economies of scale. But the myriad of market-based arguments that enable the creation of these large partnerships with hundreds of partners beg the question: 'Now that we've built the infrastructure, how do we truly distinguish ourselves in a manner that actually confirms these assumptions and secures the business?'